


Little Red Thread

by dfretha



Category: Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age: Origins
Genre: Explicit Language, F/M, Sexual Content
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-16
Updated: 2018-07-16
Packaged: 2019-06-11 13:04:13
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,576
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15316092
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dfretha/pseuds/dfretha
Summary: Alissa Cousland, Commander of the Grey Wardens and Ferelden's Queen, recounts the time of the Blight, considering what events set in motion ten years before mean for the future. Mild re-telling of the events of Dragon Age: Origins.





	Little Red Thread

**Little Red Thread  
** _a Dragon Age fan fiction_

.

Chapter I  
9:40 Dragon

.

A heavy rain began shortly before noon. It started, like most summer storms, with clouds hovering on the horizon in the early morning – black, bloated clouds that concealed the rising sun, bathing the Arling of Amaranthine in muted beige light. A chill crept into homesteads like rats, slipping beneath blankets, crawling into bone marrow, where it settled like something living. Not even the heartiest of rabbit stews seemed to chase out the cold.

Even still, the farmers pulled on their fennec fur-lined cloaks over their heavy tunics. Clear skies or rainy, the fields would not plough themselves. Dwarven merchants peddled their wares on the city streets, innkeepers kept beds made, fires kindled, stews warmed, for passing travellers seeking shelter – those who had some coppers in need of spending – while colourful minstrels sang songs of the Dalish Elves, their hats overturned. Chantry sisters stood beside welcoming fires, reciting the Canticle of Threnodies.

Alissa Cousland, like most northern Fereldens living on the coast, had the kind of constitution suited for poorer, stormy weather. She was far from comfortable in her heavy blue cloak, soaked to its lining, or her leather riding boots, rainwater squelching between her toes, but her skin had more of its natural, rosy tint than would be expected of Orlesian noblewomen of similar status in similar situations.

Earlier that morning, she’d risen to clattering cutlery in the common room below. The incoming storm made telling the time impossible, though Alissa never slept in passed sunrise, not since the Blight. Not since her parents were butchered in their home like sheep by the Howes. With her innocence, she’d lost the luxury of sleeping in late.

She climbed from her bed, blindly feeling her way. It was black but for the wisp coming in beneath her door from the hallway. The inn’s only hearth was in the common room, where it served to keep the bulk of the patrons warm, so the bedroom was cold. Her skin broke out in pimples. Beneath her thin night shift, her nipples went hard. Her teeth chattered in her skull.

Cursing, she skipped over the chilly floor. With Dog never more than one step behind, she expertly lit the candles left on the nearby table last night with a flint stone. By the candle’s light she washed her lingering fatigue from her face in the bowl of icy water. From the common room, she smelled bacon, eggs frying in fat, fish, and freshly baked bread. Her belly rumbled.

She changed from her plain cotton shift into the thick tunic hanging on the end of the bed, buttoning each silver button with careful efficiency. She slipped her leather belt over her hips, patting the carved pommel of her silverite sword without even realizing.

Dog followed her into the common room, his nails clicking on the floor. She cleared one of the corner tables near the back, by the blazing fire. An Elf took her order – bacon, eggs (two, boiled but not overcooked), a heel of blackened bread, and, if possible, a bone for Dog to chew on. She returned with Alissa’s breakfast less than five minutes later.

The other patrons recognized the Grey Warden crest on her shoulder – the Griffon rearing back, claws outstretched – but few paid her more mind than to look up briefly when she walked by. Since the Blight, Grey Wardens were becoming increasingly common sights in inns, roaming Ferelden from the Frostbacks to Vigil’s Keep, recruiting or snuffing out pockets of remaining Darkspawn. Some still considered Grey Wardens parasites, or traitors, but thanks to their victory over the Archdemon, many others saw them as heroes. But most people regarded them with little more than mild suspicion – where Grey Wardens went, trouble was known to follow.

She preferred it that way. Besides commanding Ferelden’s Grey Warden outpost since the end of the Blight, she was Ferelden’s queen, for her husband was its king. But while he ruled from the throne in the heart of Denerim, his face known to every Ferelden, she was seldom seen by petitioners. She hung on the walls in large paintings and tapestries – there was one particular mural stitched in silk that had her leading the charge in the Battle of Denerim, her sword held high, the head of the Archdemon beneath her boot – but few commoners ever saw those. If they had, she’d be overrun by townsfolk, begging her to take their troubles home to her husband.

Instead, they ignored the enigmatic Grey Warden, sitting with her loyal Mabari. Not even the local lush risked speaking to her, too scared was he of the hound’s sharp teeth. He was focused, instead, on the Elf that had taken her order. He spoke to her in what he probably thought was Elven. It wasn’t. A couple Dwarven merchants were exchanging opinions on the civil war in Orlais – one stating that Duke Gaspard was Orlais’ rightful ruler. “Even if that’s true, Celene is the better option. If she falls, Gaspard will march on Ferelden, mark my words.” – while four teenage boys – farmers sons by looks of them - were knocking over horns of frothy mead, swearing to become the best Templars the Chantry had ever seen.

“Damn mages scorched my pa’s fields for fun! Can’t plant nothing there now,” one stated.

“That’s nothing. The week ‘fore last, I saw a bloody mage rape my neighbour’s sister because she served the Chantry.”

“That’s not right,” said the third, feeling sick.

“No. Sure isn’t,” said the first. “Templars had it right in the first place. Mages should be locked up.”

“Forget that,” spat the fourth. “Make the lot of them Tranquil. Can’t hurt no one if they’s Tranquil.”

“Is that when a mage is like…made stupid?”

“Not stupid,” said the third one softly. “They can still _think_. But they can’t _feel_ nothing. Emotions, I mean. But isn’t that cruel? I mean…Isn’t it?”

“Crueler than burnin’ farmers’ fields? Or rapin’ women for servin’ the Maker?” said the fourth.

“Or blowing up a Chantry with everyone inside it?” chimed in the first. “That’s what started this whole bloody thing!”

A murmur passed between them. Alissa pressed her teeth together behind her lips. She’d heard the rumours that it was a companion of the Champion that bombed Kirkwall’s Chantry – the mage that had once healed people from his clinic in Darktown.

Nathaniel sent word, claiming to have seen Anders in the Deep Roads beneath Kirkwall with Hawke some time before. She wrote back, ordering Nathaniel to pretend that he’d never seen him. Now she was beginning to wonder if she should have sent soldiers to bring him back. He’d never officially been relieved from his service. She’d conscripted him. But rather than serve the Grey Wardens for life, like he was supposed to, Anders ran off. The same way he’d run from the Circle Tower.

Alissa knew how much he loathed the Chantry for keeping him locked up. Obligation or no, she refused to keep someone in service like that. She was no slaver.

But now…now she wasn’t so sure.

She shook her head. No sense in thinking of what could have happened. What happened happened, by the Maker’s Will.

Alissa soaked a chunk of bread in bacon fat, then offered the piece to Dog. He swallowed the chunk whole, barking happily. _Is there more?_ he seemed to wonder, his large head tilting to one side.

Alissa scratched behind his pointed ears. “Sorry, Buddy. But once we’re home, I’m sure the kennel master will have something.”

Finished her meal, Alissa approached the Elf near the bar, retrieving her leather purse from her pocket.

“I’ve never slept with’in Elf before,” the lush slurred. “So’s’it like with people, or’s there somethin’ special ‘bout Elves’ parts? Will it make my cock magic?”

“ _Fen’Harel ma halam_ ,” muttered the Elf, stacking clean plates.

“’S that what you say when you c-“

“Thanks,” Alissa interrupted, placing six sovereigns in the Elf’s palm, “for the food. It was fantastic.” Her meal only cost ten bits total. But she knew the Elf needed the coin far more than her. She folded the Elf’s long fingers over the coins so the man would not see them. 

“ _Ma serannas_ , Ser.” The Elf’s large blue eyes filled with tears. “Thank you.”

Her hunger satiated, she left the inn, making her way over to a stable where her horse, a brown Ferelden Forder named Opie, rested since last night. The stable hand retrieved her saddle, securing the leather straps beneath Opie’s round belly. He stepped back, making room for her to climb into the saddle.

“A nasty storm’s comin’,” he said, observing the black clouds. “Make no mistake on that.”

Alissa flipped him one silver, thanks for taking care of Opie for the night, then clicked her heels, the first sprinkles of rain clipping her cheeks like cool kisses. She rode through town, heading south on the Imperial Highway towards Denerim, where she was met with echoes of rolling thunder coming in from the West.

Alissa considered everything she’d heard in the common room of the inn: the civil war in Orlais. What it meant for their future in Ferelden. The mage-Templar war that threatened to tear the countryside into pieces. The Darkspawn in the Deep Roads, ever searching for the next Old God to waken.

A storm was coming. _In more ways, I’m sure, than one_ … she thought.


End file.
